Finally today was my follow up appt from my Discogram, it was originally scheduled for June 4th but I was once again rescheduled....I tell ya it gets a little old having EVERY single appt changed! But I was glad for today to come!
My Dr has confirmed that I do have Disc Degeneration in the L3, L4, and S1-L5. However with the L3 and L4 I did not have positive pain response which he expected me to. The S1-L5 is where my pain is coming from but he was not expecting that! He said the degeneration in the other discs were worse than that level but that is the nature of this "disease", sometimes you will have degenerated discs and not have any symptoms at all while you may have one that doesn't appear to be as bad that causes tremendous amounts of pain. Which is my case.
After going over the treatments I have already done over the last 2 1/2 years he said I am not likely to get any relief from anymore of those types of treatment. Another option is surgery, basically there are two types of surgeries for this and they are spinal fusion or artificial disc replacement. The last choice would be to leave it alone and live with the pain, which obviously I do not want to do...I've had enough, I'm ready to get on with my life doing fun things, riding horses again!
So I am scheduled for surgery August 25th, for the artificial replacement which is a better scenario of course pending insurance approval...I will be in the hospital for 5 days pending everything goes accordingly and my Hubby asked lots of important questions as my mind drew a blank while we were sitting there. It is possible that the insurance company may try to force fusion basically because it's cheaper. But we will go through an appeals process if they deny. My Dr isn't sure what they will do as I already meet their strict guidelines for the surgery with my history. So for now I am praying for the right outcome and I know God will take care of it all.. I'd love to hear any feedback if any of you guys have had or know anything about these procedures!
I Just LOVE this new Boot Planter that DD and I found!!!
A year ago in April I shared about a procedure/test I had done called a Discogram, it was used to determine if a herniated disc I had was causing a breakdown of the disc and based on this test they would decide course of treatment. So when I had this procedure/test done I swore I would never do anything like that again.... I first posted about this here and had hoped to get the answers I needed to correct my back pain. After I had the procedure done I was informed by a nurse over the phone that the test came back A-OK, which I was a little shocked by due to the pain levels I was having but I just chalked it up to my back injury and figured it would get better. Up to this point I had done 2 nerve injections, physical therapy, muscle relaxers and nothing worked. So I continued on living my days half-assed because that was the only way to keep the pain at a minimal level. About 8 months ago the pain started traveling down my right leg and so I went to see my PCP who basically told me I was fine. Again I waited another 4 months trying to manage and then returned again. His answer was to send me to pain management...My question to him was "what are we managing"?! I don't want to manage pain, I want to know what is wrong! So he set me up with an Orthopedic Specialist who is supposed to be the best of the best and well that shows because it took 2 months to get in to see him! So finally at the end of March I went to see him, I had to take in my MRI which was 2 years old at this point and the results of my discogram. The discogram that I had never seen the report of until I picked it up the day before my appt to find that the report did indeed say I had a positive reaction at the L5. So finally I see thhe new DR and give him everything and he basically said these other DR's were moron's since they couldn't piece this obvious problem together. My MRI showed a herniation at the L5 and my discogram showed positive results at the L5 meaning the 2 show something wrong there!! Then to top it all off after he looked at the hospital that I had the discogram at he asked if I was given anything to sedate and help me through the procedure and I told him only a tiny bit of valium that I had to beg for and it wore off before they even started and his response to all of that was "he would NEVER send a patient to that hospital for that exact reason, all of their patients are heavily sedated through the procedure as it is so horrifying and there was NO reason for them to not sedate me"!! OMGosh I was so mad!! Seriously all of that pain was unnecessary?! Now the sedation they give is a conscience sedation much like I had with the nerve injections and it does work wonders. So anyhow he sent me for an EMG and a Nerve Study then another MRI to see if the herniation was better/worse or if there were any pinched nerves. I wasn't able to get back in to see my DR for another month after that so finally last week I went in for my results. The findings were good and bad. They did not find any pinched nerves or nerve damage which is good, the L5 disc herniation is better however I have a new herniation at the L1 but he is not concerned with that at this time. And what was revealed through the MRI is that the L5 disc has degenerated, it was visible on the MRI 2 years ago and the discogram last year so guess what I have to do now...Another discogram!! He needs to pinpoint how bad it is to move on to the next level of treatment. He has promised me that I will be heavily sedated but awake of course and the downfall for after the procedure this time is I am to expect the pain to be severely worse due to the further degeneration :( I am scheduled to do this discogram on Monday... Because I have already done all of the other treatment options if they do indeed decide the disc has gotten worse he will want to look into surgery to replace the disc with an artificial disc. He is optimistic that I would be a good candidate for that option over fusion so that's better. I am not sure at this point how I feel about all of this but I do know I can't live like this forever! I just want it over with already!!
